You’re aware of the threats of malware to your business but what about the ever-changing ground rules? Cybercriminals today are launching attacks against businesses by copying sophisticated malware and techniques used to target governments and high-profile organizations.

Estimating the cost of malicious cyberactivities is complicated. But the real issue is how it affects trade, technology, and economic competition. This in-depth report takes a look at the scope of the problem and what factors determine the real cost of cybercrime.

An ongoing cyberespionage campaign against a range of targets, mainly in the energy sector, gave attackers the ability to mount sabotage operations against their victims. The attackers, known to Symantec as Dragonfly, managed to compromise a number of strategically important organizations for spying purposes and, if they had used the sabotage capabilities open to them, could have caused damage or disruption to energy supplies in affected countries. Read more into the research on these attacks in this Symantec Security Response special report.

Threats to online security have grown and evolved considerably in 2012. From the threats of cyberespionage and industrial espionage to the widespread, chronic problems of malware and phishing, we have seen constant innovation from malware authors.

This year’s ISTR once again covers the wide-ranging threat landscape, with data collected and analyzed by Symantec’s security experts. In this summary, we call out seven areas that
deserve special attention.